I loved all of you, even the cancer
in your neck and blood.

Even the sick mirror.
Your black fleece, white
cells, your bright red ones.
The lymph and sera
and your soft black mouth.
All the elbowing cells keeping
us up for each other
a little longer.

I humble before the system
that built our illnesses,
built your dog bones one by one
and tied them together
until you could walk toward me.

The system that filled them
with pocks round as zero,
pox tough as hide.

Let us walk toward
each other until our faces
touch.